You just can’t beat Yzerman in trade negotiations. The Detroit Red Wings have dramatically improved their Top-6 with the acquisition of Alex DeBrincat from division rivals Ottawa Senators for pretty movable assets of their own.
I don’t know why teams even pick up the phone when Detorit and Steve Yzerman are calling, let alone agree to a trade with him.
Despite being one of the Senators’ best players last season, Alex DeBrincat has been traded to the Detroit Red Wings for Dominik Kubalik and a couple of draft picks, which is clearly a massive W for the Red Wings and their GM Steve Yzerman. And, if you couldn’t tell, I think this is such a great trade for the Red Wings.
So, just to fully expand on what was traded, the Detroit Red Wings traded Dominik KubalÃk, prospect defenseman Donovan Sebrango, a conditional 2024 1st round pick, and a 2024 4th round pick to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Alex DeBrincat.
Yes, that Alex DeBrincat. The guy who not only scored 27 goals and 39 assists for 66 points last season on a Senators team that finished 6th in the Atlantic Division and 6 points outside the playoffs, but also a player who’s scored 30 goals three times in his career and 40 goals twice. Oh, and he’s only 25 years old.
Obviously, the Red Wings didn’t give up peanuts to get DeBrincat as Dominik KubalÃk is a reliable 2nd-line winger capable of putting up 50 points and a 1st round pick is a 1st round pick no matter how you slice it, while the Senators were also handicapped in trading DeBrincat as he had demanded out of Ottawa earlier in the offseason.
So, it was a lose-lose situation for the Senators no matter how you look at as they were never going to get full trade value for DeBrincat as his desire to leave was well know, while most of the teams who had the cap space to take on his desired contract extension were teams, such as the Red Wings, Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, Seattle Kraken, and Buffalo Sabres, with far more talent and more developed for playoff success.
They were never going to be able to keep DeBrincat…but losing him to the RED WINGS of all teams is a shocking move.
Getting a player capable of scoring 50+ goals and 80+ points in DeBrincat (if placed in the right environment) in exchange for a 50+ scorer and a mid-level 1st round pick is a steal by Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings as it not only improves their own forward core, but it seriously damages the offensive output the team that finished above them (aka: the Sens) in the playoff standings last season can showcase.
Remember, the Red Wings only finished behind the Senators by 6 points last season AFTER deliberately tanking the final few months of the year.
Yzerman has now given Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond a 40+ goal scorer capable of finishing off teams and powerplay opportunities in close games, which was a massive problem for the Red Wings last season as they lost 17 1-goal games.
Moreover, if just one of the Red Wings many 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round forward prospects they’ve drafted over the last five years (ex: Nate Danielson, Noah-Dower Nilsson, Marco Kasper, Dylan James, Dmitri Buchelnikov, Carter Mazur, Theodor Niederbach, Cross Hanas, Robert Mastrosimone, and Albin Grewe) turns into a stud forward capable of posting 65-75 points/season, then they’ve got one of the best Top-6 forward cores in the entire league.
That’s what the addition of DeBrincat does for this roster in the short term, while signing him to a 4-year, $31M extension ensures the forward core will have reliable goal scoring for many years to come.
We’ll have to wait and see if the young prospects Yzerman has been developing over these last few years of the Red Wings rebuild pan out, but I’m pretty sure this Alex DeBrincat move go down as one of the best he’s made once Yzerman’s career is over.
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